Home Ice

[Cornellian]

After tonight we are 1/2 point away from clinching home ice for hte first round of the playoffs.

Details (as always) right here.
http://www.slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/2002/ecac.cgiframe.shtml

[jtwcornell91]

I haven't worked it out myself, but I hear tell (from those who are less mistake-prone than I) that we would have clinched already if RPI hadn't come back to beat Clarkson.

[KeithK]

OK. I just spent waaaaay too much time on this, but whatever. In order for us to NOT get home ice, RPI or Union would have to catch us and have the Har,Clk,Dar,Col remain ahead of us.  So I worked out some scenarios. In order for RPI or Union to finish ahead of us we would need to lose the remaining six and they would have to go 6-0-0 and get tiebreakers.

1) Can we finish 7th? That would require RPI and Union to tie us and both win the tiebreaker while the other 4 stay ahead of us. Well if RPI and Union go 6-0-0 then Colgate is assured 2 losses which drops them behind us. So no, we can't finish 7th.  So we've clinched at least 6th.

2) Can Union beat us while keeping the top 4 ahead of us?  I let Union go 6-0-0 and us 0-6-0, and the top 4 win all games not against Union or against each other. Then I checked all 81 possibilities of games betwen Har/Clk/Dar/Col.  With the help of John's scripts it seems that no, Union cannot finish 5th ahead of us in 6th.

3) Can RPI beat us with the top 4 also ahead of us?  I did the same excercise as above and found exactly one situation where this happens.  It involves Clarkson beating Harvard, Gate over Dart and Clk, and a tie between Clk and Dart.  We then finish 6th behind Col/Clk/Har/Dar/RPI in that order.

I didn't include games involving only the bottom half of the league in this but none of the comparisons went as far as Top-10 so it doesn't matter.

Realized as I was writing this that I didn't consider case #4

4) RPI and Union both win out and finish ahead of us along with Har/Clk/Dar (since Gate would thus be eliminated).  This is easier since most of the games are fixed or irrelevant.  Only Har@Clk and Dar@Clk are left among the contenders and Clk beat Dar puts Clk and Dar ahead of us.  If Har gets at least one point from Clk, then it comes down to us vs. RPI for 5th and the comparison goes to Top-10. If Ver and Yal make the playoffs and Brn and Pri don't then the comparison can go to H2H goals which RPI could win.

So, to summarize a long story: We have NOT clinched home ice yet, which is of course what I was trying to prove.  And John was right when he wrote that we would have clinched had RPI lost or tied tonight.  Of course, I'll happily take the Knight's loss and clinch home ice next Friday!

[Jim Hyla]

Great work. Yeah, it does sound like you put way too much time into it. However, that's what makes this so much fun.

Thanks again.

[Big Red Fan]

I have also worked out the scenarios which would have to unfold for us to not get home ice:

(1) Underhill and Leneveu kill each other in a duel.  
(2) Todd Marr is incapacitated in a zamboni accident, leaving Jan Pajerski to step in and play goal.
(3) Schafer comes down with a near fatal case of amoebic dysentary.
(4) Doug Murray is deported.
(5) Stephen Baby leaves the team to play small forward for the Chicago Bulls.
(6) Sam Paolini realizes he can drop out of school and live off his parents' 50/50 raffle winnings.

Even if all of these things happened, there is still a good chance that we could beat Vermont and lock up home ice.

[melissa]

this combined with a sore thorat was almost the death of me. i was laughing so hard a almsot choked to death. VERY funny!

[jtwcornell91]

Surely Age has a smiley which is rolling on the floor laughing. ::laugh::

[Ben Doyle 03]

Like this one:



or maybe this one:



- you can decide which you like better

[Will]

(6) Sam Paolini realizes he can drop out of school and live off his parents' 50/50 raffle winnings.

I seriously found this one laugh-out-loud funny. :-D

[gwm3]

Keep in mind that there have been two Paolini family 50/50 wins in the last two years.  Either they buy a pile of tickets, or the thing is rigged ;-)